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How to simply explain "Schwa"?

Hi,

I used to teach preparatory and secondary levels, I mean young who are a bit oriented with phonetics, now my boss asked me to teach a zero level (starter)... The first lesson in the unit is about "Schwa" and I don' have the teacher's book yet.

I want to know how simply I could explain it without much complicating an already huge topic, I just need simple definition and easy examples, they are adult student with scant knowledge regarding the basics.

Re: How to simply explain "Schwa"?

Hi. I think "schwa" is not actually a phoneme as everyone says. It seems to me like an area in the IPA vowel chart. Sometimes you can use /ɜ/ and others /a/ instead of "schwa".Some websites say you can change for /ʌ/. I´ve read many websites and nobody agrees but I´m sure "schwa" is not always the same sound.